Me
The Final “Voyage” of the Galactic Starcruiser
The Galactic Starcruiser hotel never made sense to me. Obviously, it didn’t connect with enough people.
I’d do a Star Wars hotel if it was just that, a hotel. I think all the interactive crap (that skyrocketed the price) they forced guests into doing for an “experience” didn’t help, and it’s the main reason why I never had a desire to go. There’s no way I could have convinced my wife to go along with any of this even if it appealed to me. And it never did.
Even if I had the money for it, I wouldn’t have spent it for a windowless hotel room that’s supposed to be in a space ship that’s also a LARP.
I am looking forward to the inevitable Defunctland about it…
Let's Go For A Walk
4k POV walks , no commentary. Tokyo. London. New York. Paris. Sydney. Mumbai. Hong Kong. Bangkok. Rome. Vienna. Seoul. Buenos Aires. Santiago. Montreal. Cairo. Marrakech. Nairobi.
I haven’t watched them all, but I love putting them on the TV and kind of forgetting it’s on and then glance up from reading a book or playing with the dog and seeing something completely different without any context.
Escape
Into a book.
A novel of a different world.
An explanation of something new.
Escape from the busyness for a while.
Good advice.
Flowful
Flowful is a wonderful site that plays procedurally generated (everlasting) ambient music in your browser while you work, surf the web, or simply listen. There’s no need to skip tracks because the sounds are infinitely unique. You can choose from a selection of free tracks to play every week, or you can subscribe for a wider range of sounds. The sounds are customizable so that you can find the right sounds for your taste. Choose from binaural beats, classical, atmospheric, and more.
This site has helped me focus all morning. I could always use more tools to help me focus.
Focus
Our brain craves focus.
When it is focused, it is happy, still, powerful.
But a focused brain is a rarity in today’s world.
What do you do to keep your brain focused?
I try, and I try to remain focused, but my brain likes to jump around.
The Hierarchy of Productivity
Least Important: Tips and tricks and hacks and shortcuts.
Very Important: Habits and routines. Your daily actions and behavior. Your system of execution.
Most Important: Vision and values. Your purpose, your priorities, your why.
I’m not sure I spend enough time on the most important.
Future Letter
Future Letter is a website that allows users to write a letter to their future selves. The website has a simple design. Just type your message, select a time frame, and click “configure.” The letter will come to your future self through your email address. You can choose to receive your letter in six months, a year, five years, or ten years.
I just sent myself a letter to receive in 5 years. Due to my bad memory, I assume that by the time my letter comes back to me, it will catch me off guard as a pleasant surprise.
Critical Ignoring
Ralph Hertwig, Stephan Lewandowsky, Anastasia Kozyreva, and Sam Wineburg have an interesting article in The Conversation.
I’d never heard of this concept before.
Critical ignoring is more than just not paying attention – it’s about practicing mindful and healthy habits in the face of information overabundance.
Something we all need.
Record-Setting Daredevil Robbie Knievel Dead at 60
Robbie Knievel has died.
I grew up idolizing Evel Knievel and always thought Robbie was the best extension of what I loved as a kid.
My favorite jump of his is Caesars Palace.
My Homescreen 2023
I always find it fascinating how others set up their iPhones. Do they use widgets? Are they minimalist, or do they just have a springboard of icons in no discernable pattern? Do they use wallpaper from Apple or one of their pictures? Do they use a third-party app to change icons?
A simple Google search can yield thousands of ideas. Many of them use third-party applications to make specialized edits. For a time, I changed my icons using a Shortcuts instance and tried to create the most aesthetically pleasing screen. It didn’t last because I simply got bored with the icons and the hassle of changing them.
For the most part of 2022 and into 2023, I have decided to stick with the original app icons and make stronger use of widgets and, specifically, a single large widget stack to quickly roll through information. Additionally, I increased my use of the left-side pane for a stack of widgets at the ready. My home screen widget stack has Weather, Calendar, Inoreader, Google News, Spark, Overcast, Audible, Notes (for Family Food Orders), Reminders (This Week), and Photowidget. On the left is where I have Google Search and Apple Fitness, as well as specialized square widgets for my Reminders List for Shopping and Inbox for quick access. I also have squares for my work Notion page and Day One, which I restarted my use of in 2023.
When I upgraded to the new iOS 14, I was afforded the lock screen widgets. This is a pretty cool idea, even though all I’m really using it for is Calendar and Weather. I love having these on the lock screen, but they aren’t dealbreakers or anything.
At the bottom, I have Phone, Messages, Sleep Cycle, and Life360. I use Sleep Cycle every night to track my sleeping and Life360 to be able to track the people in my household.
Overall, this works for me. Inoreader is my RSS reader of choice, and I’m thinking I might upgrade to the paid tier. Overcast remains the single best podcast app. I’ve grown really accustomed to using Spark for email, but I could drop back into Mail.
While I’ve tried other third-party apps, I inevitably find myself going back to Weather, Calendar, Notes, and Reminders. The native apps work for me, and they are getting better with each iteration.
It will be interesting to see how my iPhone looks at the end of the year. I don’t anticipate big changes, but who knows?
Life Lessons for 2023
Jason Kottke pointed me to Yung Pueblo’s list of life lessons from 2022 that he’s bringing into the new year.
So good.
Merry Christmas, 2022
The most difficult part of life isn’t getting what you want, it’s wanting what you already have.
Make Fewer Small Decisions
Shawn Blanc on decision fatigue:
You and I only have so much willpower, decision-making ability, and/or creative imagination throughout the day. Try to reserve that energy for things like deep work, deep conversations, and big decisions.I need to really set up my daily habits to foster better thinking and creating.The more you can automate the inconsequential areas of your life, the the more energy and strength you have for doing your most important work and building your most important relationships.
Lean on your daily habits to let things run “automatically” and thus giving yourself more energy for thinking, creating, and decision making.
The Choice
The Choice is a three-minute video from Project Better Self.
Small choices become actions, actions become habits, and habits become our way of life.It is devastatingly simple, the choices we make determine how we live our life. Watching this is a great reminder.
Start Small
Shawn Blanc on creating habits.
When you begin a new habit and you’ve started taking action, only commit to it for 30 days or so. And then commit for another 30 days. Then commit for 90 days. Then commit for 6 months.Some good advice for me specifically in the new year as I’m embarking on a few major changes.At first it’ll be fun. But then it will be hard and mundane.
If you start out by committing to do something for the rest of your life you’ll never make it. And how many people can say they woke up at 5:00 am every day for their entire life? Seasons change, needs change, things change, you change. So your daily habits will change, too, and that’s okay.
Start with something you know you can do. And then do it again. And again. Not only is this more realistic, it also is a way to build up trust with yourself. You will feel confident deciding to get up early every day for the next six months because you already did it for 30-days in a row.
Stillness Before the Storm
I apologize to Rod Stewart, but it’s late October, and I should be back in school. And when I say “back in school,” I totally mean back writing on this site and finishing up my long-awaited (HA!) collection of short stories and essays, Captured Ghosts.
To be fair, I think I’m as close as I have ever come to finishing this book. I’d really like to have something to show for the effort at Thanksgiving and then to sell to people by Christmas. I’m about 60/40 that it won’t happen. I’d like to flip that and get it over the hump, but I’m just not quite there yet. Ugh.
I can’t seem to lose any more weight, which makes me depressed. I guess I need to eat a lot less carbs and sugar. It is depressing. Of course, these next few weeks and the last two months are nothing but carbs and sugar. I’m getting more and more depressed.
I don’t have much willpower. I just finished eating a grab-and-go can of Pringles, and I have another one at the ready for a bit later. However, I am drinking a Hint Crisp apple, and it has no carbs or sugars. It tastes kind of like someone ate an apple and then burped it into a plastic bottle of water. It’s not very good, but it’s healthy! Oh, boy. Sigh.
I should finish watching both House of Dragon and Rings of Power. Still, I also want to watch the rest of Community (I’m only on season 2) and a bunch of other things like Ted Lasso, Star Trek Discovery, His Dark Materials, Stranger Things, and Doctor Who. I’m still watching and enjoying Star Trek Lower Decks and have caught up with Andor and now waiting for the last three-episode story arc to drop so I can binge it back-to-back-to-back.
I’m also watching Clerks 3, about twenty minutes or so in. So far, I like it, but the dialogue is too cutesy by a factor of five. I wish he’d dial back some of his tropes and just write people like normal people.
I keep thinking I will see Black Adam in the theater, and then I’m like, nahh. I’ll just wait until sometime in December when it will appear on HBO Max.
The World Series is about to start, and I don’t care about it. I guess I’ll have to root for the Phillies, but it feels weird. Most of the time, I enjoy watching MLB when I don’t have a rooting interest. Maybe I’ll just wish everyone had fun playing the games.
I can’t wait for the political ads to stop playing during every commercial break. At least I’m in Illinois, not some state where crazy people are running, like Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Sometimes, I wish I could be a-political and not worry about which party is in charge, but I’m afraid if I do that, then something terrible is going to happen to my family and my country. Maybe not. Maybe I’m insulated enough by my economic status, the color of my skin, and lack of religious beliefs. I don’t know, and I guess that’s the fear. Tuning it out can only go so far.
Illinois football is on a tear, and that’s something of a surprise. It makes things more interesting in this neck of the woods. Also, Illinois basketball is looking to be extremely competitive, and having both sports playing at a high level blows my face off a tiny bit.
I need to get back to reading more. I have several novels ready, both in paper and glue form and as audiobooks. Of course, my huge list of podcasts to listen to has not diminished, and it’s really hard to get into an audiobook.
My ankles and knees hurt, but part of that happens when you hit your fifties. How did this happen? I guess I just kept getting older. It certainly beats the alternative. I have to increase my exercise and try to strengthen those painful areas. Speaking of exercise, I think I want to start a rowing machine regiment. Of course, I need a rowing machine, but I’m pretty sure I’m getting one of those this Christmas. I think it will help. I think…
It’s about to get super busy here with Illinois athletics, Thanksgiving/Christmas, colder weather, and everything else. First-world problems galore. I guess now is as good a time as any to simply enjoy the crisp air, watch the leaves fall, and breathe in the stillness before the storm.
